


I’m More Than Just Your Seed

by MaryaDmitrievnaLikesSundays



Category: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals - Team StarKid
Genre: Angst, Apocalypse, Asthma, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Character Death, F/F, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Lesbian Character, Music, Musicals, Romance, Singing, Teen Romance, Teenagers, Useless Lesbians, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-07-31 02:21:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20107588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaryaDmitrievnaLikesSundays/pseuds/MaryaDmitrievnaLikesSundays
Summary: “It’s all your fault. That’s the last thought I had before they broke down the door.”But it wasn’t. It was so far from it.





	I’m More Than Just Your Seed

**Author's Note:**

> Because someone as sweet as Alice would never blame her father

“Are you sure you have everything? You’ve got your inhaler, right? Oh, my God, please tell me you didn’t forget it—“

”Dad,” Alice said with a laugh. “It’s in the front pocket.” She patted the front of her pink suitcase.

He visibly deflated, and Alice had to supress a giggle. ”Okay,” he sighed. “Alright. I’m sorry, I just worry.”

Her smile dropped. ”I know,” she said, and her stomach turned. She didn’t like lying to her dad. Even if he was kind of stupid, he cared about her.

_Not enough to trust my choices,_ she thought, and her guilt receded back to a whisper in the back of her mind, frustration bubbling up in its place. She assured herself that she was doing the right thing.

A warm hand landed on her shoulder ”Hey, you okay?” She looked up to see her father, his head cocked and his brow furrowed in concern. 

Alice swallowed. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just kinda tired.”

They were silent for a long moment. Dad said, “Well, then I guess I’ll see you next week. Hey, what if we get steak when you come back?”

Alice nodded. “Yeah,” she mumbled. “Bye, Dad.” She didn’t wait to see her dad’s reaction. She hoisted her suitcase onto her shoulder, turned to the impatient bus driver, and started up the stairs.

”And Alice?”

Alice turned back to her father. His face wore a tight-lipped smile, but his eyes held a sad wistfulness, and his shoulders were slumped. He only ever looked like that, she noticed, at the bus stop and in the custody lawyer’s office. “I love you,” he said, and suddenly her entire body felt heavy, sick.

She pasted on a weak smile. “I love you, too,” she replied. She turned and walked down the aisle, taking a seat at the back of the bus. She looked out the grimy window, hoping to catch a last glimpse of her dad before she left, but all she saw was a single waving hand before the bus pulled away and turned a corner, bathing her view in concrete and cars.

She sighed. She didn’t want to think about her father. She didn’t want to think about how often he said he loved her, how overbearing and controlling he could be, all of the conflicting things in her mind. She didn’t want to think about any of that, so she put in her earbuds and let herself drift away on the sounds of strumming guitars and bus engines.

The bus stopped with a screech outside of Hatchetfield High, a large brick building with a grand entrance behind at least an acre of open land. Alice squeezed between the rows of people, muttering apologies to blank faces. She stepped off of the bus, bag in hand, and scanned the area looking for any signs of Deb, a brown curl or a fluttering flannel. But there was nothing. The courtyard was empty.

Oh, God, what if this was a mistake? Maybe she had gotten the day wrong and Deb was already driving home, or maybe she just hadn’t wanted to show up. She should never have lied to her dad, but she did, and now she was all alone in an unfamiliar school without enough bus fare to make it to Clivesdale. She would have to call him to pick her up, listen to him rant on and on about how of course this would happen, how Deb was untrustworthy and lazy. She would cry silently in the passengers seat until they parked in front of her mother’s house, where she would be grounded before she even set foot in the kitchen. Tears began pooling in her eyes. This was stupid, she was stupid, everything was wrong—

”Alice!”

That voice. She knew that voice, all morning sun and faded freckles. She looked up to see Deb jogging towards her, her face split open in a wide smile. Alice quickly blinked away the tears, a small smile pulling at her lips. “Hey, Deb,” she muttered once she reached her.

Deb leaned in for a hug, but stopped. She stared at Alice’s red eyes. “Hey, are you okay?” She asked.

For the first time that day, Alice’s lips smiled of their own accord. “Yeah,” she said. “Just another fight with my Dad.”

Deb nodded. Alice knew she understood; Deb’s mother had spent two hundred dollars on alcohol per week for the last eleven years. Some days Alice felt bad venting to her, dumping her problems on an already monumental load, but Deb never seemed to mind. She listened in full, never once complaining that Alice’s problems were lesser, never shaming her for her sadness.

Deb wrapped a protective arm around Alice’s shoulders and picked up her bag for her with the other. “Let’s go inside, huh? It’s too cold out here.” She said, leading Alice through the side door.

As they walked through the pristine building, they passed a large group of singing teenagers. Their voices were beautiful, soft and silken, but something was off. Their harmonies were too perfect for a troupe of high schoolers, their timing too exact. There were no mistakes.

”What’s going on there?” She asked, forcing a light tone into her voice as the singing faded behind them.

Deb shrugged. “Just the theatre kids. I think they’re putting on Godspell or something.”

Alice nodded. Hatchetfield high was much more focused on the arts than her entirely STEM school. Calculus and chemistry came as easy as breathing, but Alice knew nothing of song and dance, of paint or clay.

Deb stopped her outside of two large doors, with the words _ORCHESTRA ROOM_ painted meticulously in white paint across them. “Hey,” she said, her hand sliding down from Alice’s shoulder to her palm. “I’ve got to finish rehearsal, but you can just wait in the back of the room, okay? No one really cares what happens behind the cellos.”

“Yeah, no problem. I’ve got homework to do, anyways.”

Deb smiled and pecked her lips, just barely a brush. For just a brief second, her entire body exploded in sparks. Then, Deb pulled away and lead her into the large room.

Alice hurried through the semi-circle of musicians to a hard plastic chair in the corner of the room. She took her bag back from Deb and removed her physics textbook, balancing it on her knees. She breezed through the first five problems as the music began to rise around her like a mist. Her pencil paused for just a moment, then resumed its furious scribbling.

As she flipped the first page and began work on its back, the music picked up. The pace quickened, going from a slow melody to a flurry of furious staccatos. Despite herself, Alice looked up to watch the students play. They swayed ever so slightly in time with the dragging of their bows, and she was reminded of the way a school of fish all moved as if of one mind. Some bows were off, but they were just teenagers. But her eyes shot straight to Deb. Deb, first chair viola, who was usually so guarded and strong, had her eyes closed and her lips parted. Her usually slouched back was perfectly straight, her body perched on the edge of her seat. Her fingers flew across the strings almost of their own accord. She never once opened her eyes to look at the sheet music before her. She knew the notes, knew the harmonies better than anyone in the room.

Suddenly, the music changed. It slowed once more, eerie harmonies overtaking the lighthearted tune of before. Deb’s eyes flew open, her fingers stopping mid-press. She scanned the papers before her with wide, frantic eyes. She turned over her shoulder, taking in the few students who looked just as lost as she did. Alice noticed that the stragglers from the song’s beginning, the ones whose bows stroked with the wrong time and fingers hit the wrong point on their instruments, had come into tune with the others. Their movements were all precise, perfect. Terrifying.

Deb turned to the boy next to her, a mediocrely violinist, and whispered, “Dude, where are we?” 

The music screeched to a stop. Nearly every student turned to Deb, lowering their instruments. She laughed awkwardly. “You guys didn’t have to stop playing, I just never learned this song. If someone gets me the sheet music I can probably—“

She cut herself off as her stand partner’s fist collided with her nose. Alice shot up as Deb collapsed to the ground, her books clattering to the ground beside her, but she didn’t stop to watch. “Oh, my God!” She exclaimed, cutting between the rows of students and skidding to a stop beside Deb. She covered her face with her hands, her eyes screwed up in pain. She whipped her head to face the boy who had punched Deb. His stony eyes met her fiery ones, but he didn’t seem to truly see her. She didn’t care. “What the hell is your problem? She just asked you a question! Are you insane?”

She didn’t get an answer. All but four of the students grabbed their bows and formed a circle around Alice and Deb. Their movements were all exactly the same, precise down to the simultaneous twitching of their fingers. They raised them high above their heads, brandishing them like weapons. Alice squeezes her eyes shut and ducked her head, trying to shield Deb with her own body. But the blows that she expected never came.

Instead, the students began to sing. About what, she didn’t know. She couldn’t understand their words over the pounding of her heart in her ears. Notes too perfect, too clear surrounded her as Deb grabbed her hand and hoisted her off of the floor. She hardly realized she was running until the orchestra room door slammed behind the two of them, cutting off the eerie harmonies with a bang. Judging from the pattering of feet behind her, she guessed other students had followed them.

Alice couldn’t breathe. All she knew was the feeling of Deb’s calloused fingers holding hers, the rhythmic pounding of heir feet. Her lungs burned, the hallways were an endless blur of linoleum. A student slipped behind her, but she just kept running. She squealed when seconds later, she heard the crack of bone, followed by a shrill scream. Somehow, the scream evolved so that by the time it cut off, it was a high, unwavering vibrato.

She felt her throat begin to close as Deb pulled her through a door and shut it behind her. Alice slid down the wall, a hand to her screaming chest, struggling to pull in a single breath. She dimly registered Deb pushing a wooden desk in front of the door, saying, “This is the only room with a lock new enough to keep from sliding.”

Deb rested her head on the door, panting. “What the fuck was that?”

Alice didn’t respond. She couldn’t. Her exhales were short and quick, her inhales nonexistent. Her lungs heaved against nothing.

”Alice?” Deb turned her head. Her eyes widened when they met Alice, as if her panic could infect the both of them. “Holy shit, Alice!”

Deb sprinted to Alice’s side, crouching beside her. She placed her hand over Alice’s, resting on top of her stuttering check. She quickly scanned Alice’s body. “You’re having an asthma attack, right?”

Alice nodded.

”Uh, shit, okay. You have your inhaler?”

Alice paused, then shook her head. “It’s...my bag, it’s...” She wheezed.

”It’s in your suitcase?”

Again, Alice nodded. The pain was unimaginable, like she’d been stabbed in each lung. Every meager breathe in was more a moan than an inhale. Her eyes refused to spot over, though, her mind refused to slip into unconsciousness.

”Goddamnit,” said Deb. “Goddamnit! Ok, that’s in the orchestra room. Fuck!”

Deb stood and turned to the door, where the harmonies were approaching steadily. Alice tried to reach for her, but her hand dropped to the floor almost immediately. “Okay,” Deb whispered to herself. “Okay, I can do this. I’m fine. I’m good.”

She pounded on the door, and Alice flinched. “Fuck!” She yelled suddenly.

Deb approached Alice once more. She turned and rushed back to her. Without a word she bent down and grabbed Alice’s face, pressing their lips together. Alice would have gasped if she could; Deb tasted like strawberry chapstick and cheap weed and everything right in the world. Alice almost forgot the agony spreading from her lungs out to her limbs. She closed her eyes and let the hand on her chest relax, leaning into the kiss.

Then, all too soon, Deb pulled away. “I’ll be right back,” she said. She wrenched open the door and disappeared into the unfamiliar halls.

”Deb!” she gasped as one of the other students hiding in the room shoved the desk back into place. Soon, Deb’s footsteps faded into the sounds of ever-approaching singing. Alice let her head fall back onto the wall.

Deb would be fine. She was smart, she was strong. She wouldn’t end up like the tiny cellist in the hallway. She would get her inhaler safely and they would make it out together using some secret pathway that only she knew. 

Her hands began to move of their own accord. She saw herself dial her dad’s number into her cracked phone and heard herself ask him for help as best she could in her condition. As she dropped it to the floor the doors rattled. What seemed like twenty bodies slammed into it from the outside, singing words Alice couldn’t make out. The hit the door again, and the girl next to her screamed and covered her ears.

Alice felt herself slipping away into the black as the slamming became rhythmic, one hit after the other. Her body relaxed, sliding down all the way to the floor until she was staring up at the white tiled ceiling. She stopped trying to pull in breaths. It was useless. Her fingers were cold, her muscles weak. This was it.

The desk moved, but the lock held firm.

Deb. She was still out there. The kids would have had to go past her. Go _through_ her. She invisioned Deb’s beautiful body, mangled beneath the feet of thirty masterful dancers. A single tear slipped down Alice’s cheek at the thought. She couldn’t sob even if she wanted to.

The wood around the door handle began to splinter.

Where was her Dad? It felt like she’d been trapped in the room for years. Was he stuck in the same situation? Trapped in some warehouse or grocery store back room as expert singers pounded at the door? God, she hoped not.

She couldn’t believe she had fought with him so much. He was only trying to keep her safe, and the one time she dared to lie to him she ended up on the floor of a choir room with twenty students trying to kill her. She swore to herself that if she ever made it out of there—and the chances seemed to be growing slimmer by the second—she would never argue with him again.

The door broke open. The voices swelled to screams. Hands grabbed her shoulders and the world went black.

**Author's Note:**

> My first starkid fic, please comment y’all!!  
Edit: holy shit I was so close to being finished with this and went to Snapchat for just a second and it all deleted so I guess I’m staying up the rest of the night to redo it


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